Suzie Yorke, Founder of Love Good Fats, on the Shift from Executive to Entrepreneur

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[00:37] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast, the number one podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.
[00:44] SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Celine Williams and I'm here today with Susie York, who's the CEO and founder of Love Good Fats.
[00:52] SPEAKER_01: A company that's on a mission to change how North American's eat.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: Love Good Fats is currently available at over 18,000 stores, including most natural food stores.
[01:02] SPEAKER_01: And is the fastest growing food start-up in Canada.
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here, Susie. I'm really excited to talk to you.
[01:08] SPEAKER_02: Wonderful. Thank you, Celine, for having me.
[01:11] SPEAKER_02: So I kind of quickly had through networking, just classic networking, you know,
[01:18] SPEAKER_02: have an idea of what do you think. Everyone wanted to meet me.
[01:21] SPEAKER_02: I probably had 200 people say, yes.
[01:23] SPEAKER_02: So that was very different world for me where when you have a job, you know, I was as a VP,
[01:30] SPEAKER_02: I was maybe networking one or twice a year for some lunches and stuff.
[01:34] SPEAKER_02: Now I suddenly was, you know, meeting two people a day sometimes and saying,
[01:38] SPEAKER_02: I have this idea, what do you think? Can you help me with this, this, this?
[01:43] SPEAKER_02: So it was a very different world than I kind of realized how everyone was so generous.
[01:48] SPEAKER_02: And I wind up quickly finding, you know, like the team that wanted to either be on the board,
[01:54] SPEAKER_02: be an advisor and help with, you know, a little kind of $10,000 here and there to kind of say,
[02:00] SPEAKER_02: you know, I'll put a little bit of money behind so you can start.
[02:04] SPEAKER_02: So it went from, you know, part time, you know, half, like first was, you know,
[02:10] SPEAKER_02: like on my weekends and weeknights and then it went part time just kind of doing this.
[02:15] SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm still trying to pay bills because I was a single mom back then and one daughter going into university
[02:21] SPEAKER_02: and one son still has to, you know, get through school.
[02:25] SPEAKER_02: And so it went from, call it March 2016 and we shipped our first case in September 17.
[02:35] SPEAKER_02: So that was actually eight months longer than it could have been just because the first production entirely failed.
[02:43] SPEAKER_02: So we could have, yeah, so I had to, you know, write off $80,000 a packaging, you know, garbage.
[02:49] SPEAKER_02: I raised money and I, you know, I borrowed money from my mortgage and all my savings.
[02:55] SPEAKER_02: And like boom, 80,000 was gone because the first production that we did in April 2017 failed.
[03:03] SPEAKER_02: So we kind of had to delay the launch.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: But essentially, you know, you, you can, so the summer of 16 was doing the concept work.
[03:13] SPEAKER_02: So one research after another, I think I paid for three rounds of research.
[03:17] SPEAKER_02: But given this is my job, instead of hiring an agency or some consultants, you know,
[03:23] SPEAKER_02: I'm able to do research for $800 per wave of research at my time, which is kind of nothing versus a lot of other startups.
[03:33] SPEAKER_02: Kind of like, well, I don't, you know, how do I get consumer research?
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: How do I write the concept? How do I come up with packaging?
[03:40] SPEAKER_02: I happen to be able to do all that kind of for very low cost.
[03:44] SPEAKER_02: So you do that first. Then I got, I was getting better and tighter and tighter in the concepts.
[03:50] SPEAKER_02: I kept updating my PowerPoint, getting more and more data.
[03:53] SPEAKER_02: What was happening in parallel is butter and meat and milk was on the front page of time magazine,
[04:00] SPEAKER_02: front page of Fortune magazine, front page of Forbes, you know, you know, fats are back saturated fats are good cardio vascular is no longer diseases no longer linked to fats like boom,
[04:11] SPEAKER_02: boom, so every month there was new information that fats were good.
[04:17] SPEAKER_02: So I kept updating my PowerPoint.
[04:19] SPEAKER_02: One of my first board members in got me, you know, a few retailer meetings.
[04:24] SPEAKER_02: So even though it was really early, we had a chance to fly and meet a few retailers and get their input, which usually doesn't happen, you know, we kind of had talk to tops.
[04:35] SPEAKER_02: Like really early on. So, you know, it was a checklist and I think, you know, off the 200 or so people I met early on, there was a 199 that would say that have said like, wow, this is a big idea.
[04:48] SPEAKER_02: And the name change, you know, it was love fats and then Susie's good fats and then the good fat company like we're just kind of in an exploration mold like exploring the logo, the name, the trademarks, but I was getting check marks throughout and, you know, and you kind of have to work through the consumer research data,
[05:09] SPEAKER_02: you know, I came to an U.S. and the feedback you're getting from some, you know, some established kind of experts. And when you kind of, you don't get a lot of similar feedback.
[05:20] SPEAKER_02: You kind of stay the course plus, you know, I have my background. So we kind of did all like I did all of that stuff initially and, and then had a big production fail.
[05:32] SPEAKER_02: And then kind of said, oh, you know, the company would have shut down if I hadn't found another copacker, but I just got really lucky and, and that copacker fail led to finding a bigger copacker who actually was closer to home in market instead of a Quebec.
[05:49] SPEAKER_02: And they were able to make an even better bar than we would have made because they had different equipment. So, you know, like Hallelujah, like the, you know, kind of the journey. I got really kind of lucky there with that fail, but wind up in a better place.
[06:05] SPEAKER_02: And then the other big kind of fork in the road was the the keto trend, which was really, you know, last 20 years, kind of the same, like a lot of, you know, health care, health care professionals knew obviously about the ketogenic diet and, and it kind of had a lot of benefits to treating certain, you know, children epilepsy and certain health issues, but it was, you know, that kind of niche like undercurrent.
[06:33] SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly, boom, you know, Nina's book comes out front page of all the news, more and more featuring fats. And then that just kind of got low carbon keto through the roof again. And I just had, you know, my bars on the shelves in September 17 and by May 2018 keto was the number one Google diet out there.
[06:56] SPEAKER_02: So it was just, you know, the right kind of right product with the right partner and the right category consumer behavioral trends kind of just uplifted the brand and end up that's a gift, right? Like if you're with the right brand idea at the right time, you can kind of take off it.
[07:17] SPEAKER_02: You could have a phenomenal brand idea, but if your timing is a bit off, you're often too early, then you don't get that benefit. But I kind of, you know, I got kind of lucky twice and and it's all kind of it's helped kind of fuel where we are today.
[07:35] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that. It's it's really interesting how looking back, you know, the quote failure of the coping in the moment. I'm sure felt like a lot of it. I mean, it's a huge problem to deal with. And then looking back, you're able to go, well, actually, that was a gift because look what I got instead of what I thought I was.
[07:59] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was in shock. And I think most of the kind of the team around me kind of thought like, oh, right, like one off hundreds of thousands of ideas that just, you know, it's kind of like what startups, right? How many food startups kind of make it on the shelf in the US and stay there like, you know, first, you're already in a fraction of this food startups will ever be able to do that. And then second.
[08:25] SPEAKER_02: And, okay, well, you know, I was a nice idea, but kind of dead on can't get the bars made. And, and, you know, I just when looking back now, we were able in 11 weeks, I was able to find another copack or scrap the packaging, reorder, reupload, get it up printed again in Korea, get a chip back and get.
[08:47] SPEAKER_02: Get kind of the team on the line for three days trying to make them, you know, if I, we've done a lot of things fast in the last two and a half years, but nothing that fast. So, you know, I was really scared inside. I think, but I was just so focused on like, because the reality is I would have to go back to my day job of consulting, which I didn't really didn't want to do or finding another VP of job.
[09:13] SPEAKER_02: I really didn't want to do that at that, you know, at that age and time of my career. But I think I, you know, I didn't know what I didn't know I wasn't an entrepreneur that kind of maybe had 10 false starts right. I just was naively kind of, I mean, I got a problem to solve. I'm an engineer.
[09:29] SPEAKER_02: I got to find another copacker and I had 30 that said, no, no, no, no, no, 30 times. And I had one that said, you know, there's not one bar. We've not been able to make in our 50 years history. So bring it on.
[09:44] SPEAKER_02: And that was game changer.
[09:47] SPEAKER_01: That's incredible. You said something that I want to touch on in there, which was that that there was a, in essence, you were a first time entrepreneur who hadn't had all those failures, who was, you know, I evenly saying like, well, I'm just going to keep going.
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: I have a problem. It's that first time I've been an engineering background. And I wonder there's so much grace and blessing and something like that. But I wonder from someone who comes from a corporate background.
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: Where there are also challenges inside of that that show up because how you are taught to think or how you think things should work aren't necessarily what's happening.
[10:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's massive massive challenges. And I think I'm the bit of the exception where a, you know, 25 year corporate veteran at age 50 single mom with not that much money in the bank relatively speaking.
[10:47] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I'm going to start my own food company like there are some, but it's kind of the, the exception, because, you know, but the difference, I think, with me is for anyone who's kind of like work with me through my career, as I've always kind of been a little bit different like in terms of I was more of a change agent.
[11:10] SPEAKER_02: So, after the first 10 years of, you know, PNG and Heinz and Frito, and even in those three, three roles, I was kind of the change agent of like, okay, you know, Pepsi co needed Doritos and to see those like needed kind of a change agent come in to kind of to fix, you know, the brands weren't growing or weren't introduced.
[11:31] SPEAKER_02: And Heinz ketchup had been declining for 10 years recruiter calls and wait watchers have been declining for 10 years recruiter calls.
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: So, I kind of had to find myself as the change agent who, you know, long time, respectful brands are declining, not growing, not hitting target, you know, call me.
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: And that combined with, I think, what later got coined as an entrepreneur.
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
[12:02] SPEAKER_02: So now, so then I think it was later and like, oh, you know, you're probably checking that box of an entrepreneur.
[12:08] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a good way to summarize my, you know, kind of, so I'm, I'm, you know, I had kind of that innate at age 15.
[12:18] SPEAKER_02: I wanted to start my own company and just took me 35 years.
[12:22] SPEAKER_02: So I kind of had a bit of the behaviors.
[12:26] SPEAKER_02: And I think the best way to think about it is if you are not change agent entrepreneur, you probably don't quite fit in the, you know, 50 year mold of just a packet bigger package goods.
[12:39] SPEAKER_02: The benefit though is, you know, had I, had I started a food brand in my 20s or 30s, I like it wouldn't have got this big this fast, right?
[12:49] SPEAKER_02: Because you kind of have to know positioning product price value and then awareness and trial plans to, to, to, and then retailers, distributor networks like, you know, planning innovation, innovation, innovation.
[13:02] SPEAKER_02: You kind of have to know, know that.
[13:06] SPEAKER_02: And I was very fortunate to with networking is, you know, even though I kind of had neglected networking over the last 20 years, I had, you know, my LinkedIn up and I had 400 contacts and, you know, I don't even know if I checked it once a week to now I have, you know, 10,000 them on it all day.
[13:25] SPEAKER_02: And I still think I'm nowhere doing close enough to what I should be doing, but I was able to, to through networking on just like, here's my idea, can you help me basically have, you know, now thousands of people that have reached out and contributed to help.
[13:44] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, sometimes when you're, you're, you're, when you're younger, like I, like there's a million reasons why none of this would have worked.
[13:54] SPEAKER_02: Had I tried in my 20s or 30s plus I was too scared back then, right? I was like, I don't have money, I don't have an idea. I'm not really an entrepreneur.
[14:04] SPEAKER_02: You know, I got bills to pay. I had, oh, and then I had, you know, young kids. So I had all the reasons why, nope, you know, can't be an entrepreneur earlier on. And then I would look around and there's all these successful and especially now these young startups. But for me, I was like, nope, that's not me, right?
[14:22] SPEAKER_02: Like I, I got a, I'm not, that's, so it wasn't in my blood as a, you know, there's some 15 year olds now that I'm seeing on my son's age that are starting stuff. That wasn't me.
[14:34] SPEAKER_02: But it kind of worked out for, for the right combination of factors that worked out that I was able to come up with a brand and have a strong enough brand proposition and, and, and a community support to be able to launch.
[14:49] SPEAKER_02: Pretty fast and grow crazy fast after that.
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. You know, I think we live in a time right now where we glorify entrepreneurs and we don't talk about the challenges and we don't talk about, you know, nothing is certain than I'm saving us.
[15:07] SPEAKER_01: But there's more safety in working for someone else than there is in starting your own thing at the beginning until you know if it's going to work.
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: And so I think we are seeing a lot of like 15 year olds now, for example, who are thinking that way.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: And thankfully they're young enough to be resilient and not have it, you know, ruin their lives forever, if that's even a thing.
[15:28] SPEAKER_01: But like I think there's something to be said for we do glorify entrepreneurship a lot more now than we used to.
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: And so 15 year olds see it as a real option, whereas, you know, when you were 15 when I was 15, we might have been interested in it.
[15:43] SPEAKER_01: But it was that's how what people work people were like, go get a job. You get a job and you do the safe thing.
[15:47] SPEAKER_02: And it was the exception that either DNA like I remember I was at McGill and one of my good friends or husband is like this, you know, in his DNA is an entrepreneur.
[15:56] SPEAKER_02: Like by the time that University of his third company now he I think he's had 30 and it was all in the technical because I was an engineer of the technical software back then.
[16:06] SPEAKER_02: But like literally, you know, like only kind of those are remember as a PNG and two guys left and they both started their company.
[16:14] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, like everyone else was also wow, right? Like that was the exception.
[16:19] SPEAKER_02: And I think we glorify entrepreneurs and there's a whole kind of generation that nearly is saying, you know, working for somebody is kind of like, you know, kind of not success.
[16:32] SPEAKER_02: But, but we'll kind of see how how like there's such big pros and cons. I think Michelle Obama that I saw speak basically one of her big themes when and when she came to Toronto was you've got to do the work.
[16:45] SPEAKER_02: Right? Like you put in 10 years off doing the work, right? There's no shortcut. If you want to have a successful company, do the work and she's a little bit kind of hard on that, you know, like I think I will instantly kind of be successful.
[17:03] SPEAKER_02: And the reality is you have a lot of people that seemingly, you know, go on Instagram, have a million followers or suddenly influencers and supposedly making a lot of money.
[17:15] SPEAKER_02: You know, that's now changing. But we have a generation that it's seen that you could do something on your own and get, you know, the quick hits.
[17:25] SPEAKER_02: But the norm, whether it's a food startup or and you have all the, you know, the fintech and the digital and software, like you see the young guy that is suddenly the multi millionaire because he came up with whatever the next, you know, Pinterest and Twitter and this and that.
[17:44] SPEAKER_02: So you kind of have a generation that's saying, you know, wow, like you can go from zero to to something. But for the majority, it's you need to put in the hard work and for every kind of food product that's on a shelf in some large grocery stores in Canada and stays on the shelf.
[18:04] SPEAKER_02: There's thousands that have failed and and will continue to fail and not kind of make it even for the founder to pay their bills.
[18:14] SPEAKER_02: Right. It's a really tough, tough high high fail rate big CPG has an 80% fail rate on innovation.
[18:23] SPEAKER_02: Natural products has 96% fail rate according to the natural product expo research of a five year, five year trends on brands and innovation launched.
[18:37] SPEAKER_02: So that's a that's a big fail rate.
[18:42] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you hear about the Elon Musk and and you know, he epitome epitomizes the entrepreneur, you know, God, like my goodness, you know, not only did you start one company is like four and they're all like game changer.
[19:00] SPEAKER_02: So that it's great that you can kind of look up and dream that way, but you have to put in the work and you might be lucky 17 year old that has this, you know, techie next Twitter, whatever.
[19:16] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you'll be you'll you'll make it really big, but the majority and especially in food where you got to get something on the shelf into a basket, you know, paid with the wallet and into a belly and consumed again and again and again.
[19:35] SPEAKER_02: It's it's a hard work.
[19:37] SPEAKER_01: And this is a really important conversation to have because you had as you acknowledged your growth, you had a fairly fast rise to being the fastest growing food startup in Canada, right?
[19:50] SPEAKER_01: It was it was a shorter time frame than a lot of people have.
[19:54] SPEAKER_01: And yet inside of that, you have talked about, you know, failures with the packaging failure, you know, things that have held you back having to rebrand it a few times, you've changed the, you know, the name of the company you've pivoted, I mean, hate the term pivot, but you've adapted, right?
[20:11] SPEAKER_01: And yet, even inside of that, and yes, you are very, you are very successful and you have this wonderful brand behind you, but it wasn't just like, well, I'm going to do that.
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to jump in and it's all going to work and I think we look at people like Elon Musk, who is an exception and doesn't talk a lot about his failures and go, well, what's the way it is?
[20:32] SPEAKER_01: And I think what you're talking about is even it, and I get it was faster than for what it was for a lot of people because of your experience, but that's much more realistic.
[20:42] SPEAKER_01: And it's important to talk about that so people don't only see the exceptions and think, I do there's something wrong with them because they're not doing it that way or that's the way it's supposed to work.
[20:52] SPEAKER_02: And the majority, starting to do a little bit more interviews and opening up a little bit of time, but I know the impression of people who've heard of my brand and the story and, you know, we've gotten a few awards and the first impressions are, oh, wow, you know, it's all kind of like, you know, a better roses and it's like, you know, I change the formula like six times.
[21:16] SPEAKER_02: We kind of nearly went sideways here. We had this other issue there. Of course, we had the first big fail of the production and the product.
[21:26] SPEAKER_02: And we just did it kind of so quickly and I think, you know, I was surrounded by kind of the right folks and with my background from the brand marketing perspective, I was able to kind of make big decisions really fast.
[21:42] SPEAKER_02: But if you make them wrong, you know, they're costly and when, when, you know, for perspective and food in Canada, I had the opportunity to be an Arlene Dickinson's incubator. I think it was cohort four.
[21:57] SPEAKER_02: So I had an opportunity to be with, you know, 16 other CEOs who had applied and had their ideas. And I think now she's had 12 cohorts.
[22:07] SPEAKER_02: So that incubator is really the only one in Canada that's is really designed to help food start up. So it's amazing. It's in Calgary. So I had to fly back and forth to Calgary.
[22:19] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I had to have enough money to do that and and and learn. But the and when I and when she accepted me in the program, I had zero sales. So that was a gift, right? Like, OK, you know, you're accepted in the program and you not even sold one box.
[22:34] SPEAKER_02: But a lot of the startups can be, you know, you get to a million and that's a milestone. We even celebrated when we got to a million on Instagram and Facebook. And then you get to two million and food in Canada. And then you start smiling because you're like, you're nearly at the minimum threshold, right?
[22:55] SPEAKER_02: That would be like 20 million in the US and 20 million in the US is a pretty big important milestone because then all the VCs that fund fund you that can fund you know, you're you're not just kind of, you know,
[23:10] SPEAKER_02: you know, Cam flashing that there's consumer demand, like at 20 million, you're in the US, you start so 2 million in Canada starts being kind of like serious, right?
[23:21] SPEAKER_02: You're you still can only afford two to three employees. But but still, right? So so the majority of the startups kind of get stuck between, you know, a million and 2 million and what you want to do is in food.
[23:37] SPEAKER_02: If you're able to get to 5 and 10, wow, right? Like you have potential for growth because now that starts being meaningful in the startup world. But even like there's big CPG brands that are not, you know, more than than 10, like depending the consumer needs.
[23:55] SPEAKER_02: So and many, many startups will take 10 million, 10 years to get to to 3, 3 million. They're trying to kind of figure out how do I then get to the 10 million plateau.
[24:08] SPEAKER_02: So so the so it's kind of all, you know, connected of your positioning your product price value. And we happen to kind of, you know, go by 1 million, go by 10 million really, really fast because there was so much demand for a low sugar high fat delicious bar like our bar tastes like no other bar like there, no other protein bar tastes like this.
[24:36] SPEAKER_02: Right. There's all these dates bars and agwavi bars and you know natural, you know, sugar bars, carbs bars like they're like chocolate bars to your liver.
[24:50] SPEAKER_02: But we have a, you know, barely any sugar went to to Ram bar that tastes absolutely insanely delicious. So like people will take one bite and they're like, well, wait a minute and it's only went to ram a sugar. So we kind of were riding a big trend.
[25:07] SPEAKER_02: And at a unique product. So we were able to kind of grow really, really quick, but you still have to kind of recognize that for a lot of startups, you're trying to get the 2 million and every single penny matters.
[25:22] SPEAKER_02: Because you don't have that many funds and it's expensive, you know, we're so it's all kind of connected to, you know, how big is your idea and how do you get from below kind of thresholds to above. So then you can kind of get bigger and bigger.
[25:40] SPEAKER_03: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada. eBay Canada is powering Canadian small businesses go to eBay dot CA forward slash up and running Chopen your new global e-commerce business.
[25:54] SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask this question because we have some listeners who have companies, whether it's, you know, food goods or not, who would be at a point where they're looking for investors, whether it's, you know, VCs or otherwise.
[26:08] SPEAKER_01: What has your experience been like been with that and or would you have any advice for anyone who's at the point where they're starting to think about that.
[26:16] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the advice that was given to me and then I've lived it through in the last three years is go it ain't like really only have angels upfront, right. So I actually had invitations and met P's and BCs as kind of a gift like a favor, right.
[26:32] SPEAKER_02: Like they'll spend through a context spend half an hour to give me some advice, but the advice was go angel and really, you know, angels is called friend and family, but I had no friends and no family that had money.
[26:45] SPEAKER_02: That's for sure. So it is kind of through networking and you really have to start with angel investors and you have to start with, you know, find kind of a couple folks that will be on your board and kind of help kind of.
[26:59] SPEAKER_02: So it's not just you, you have a couple of experts that will play a role of saying, you know, I'm kind of a more season executive and I support this idea too.
[27:11] SPEAKER_02: And then they'll help open doors, but in the end, it's your idea, but you want to have a couple of kind of strong season recognize experts to support your idea and then get angel.
[27:23] SPEAKER_02: And what angel you need, you know, your story, your little PowerPoint and you just need to kind of tell your story and what are your wins and what do you think you're going to do and and then as you start selling, how are you doing and why do you think you can do more and and just really sweat it out.
[27:38] SPEAKER_02: So I was fortunate enough to be on on the district ventures and incubator. So that's one gift to Canada that is funding startup. So I would for sure, you know, Google all of the startups now.
[27:55] SPEAKER_02: I think there's startup Canada also there's Mars, but I don't think Mars has programs, but I would like Google and ask everybody what are all the startups and Canada funding options.
[28:09] SPEAKER_02: But the majority, you need, you know, a half a million dollars, you need an idea, like you need to have something, but just try, you know, all of those.
[28:20] SPEAKER_02: And in parallel, you're working angel investors. So if you can get, you know, 150,000 with startup Canada or with, you know, with a little contest, apply to all of all of them, because you'll learn and you'll kind of figure out the network.
[28:34] SPEAKER_02: And and that's kind of what you do the first couple years. We got, because we got so big quickly, we were able to then get some DCs interested at first. They said, no, no, no, you know, I think one of the VCs I had calls with them when I had an idea on paper.
[28:49] SPEAKER_02: And it was great. Keep it up, but no, right. So and then when you get bigger, you can, you can kind of get, you get them kind of being interested in giving you term sheets.
[29:01] SPEAKER_02: But it really is stuff in Canada, like the, the US investors have a hard time recognizing your results in Canada for what they are.
[29:12] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we have like numbers in Canada that are through the roof and US VCs looking at them can even make sense of the math, because the turns, the velocities are so, so strong. They're like, no, no, like that's not really possible. And I was like, yeah, it is like it's here's the data, right?
[29:28] SPEAKER_02: Like, just look at, you know, look at the law, blah, blah, data, and Costco data. Here it is, right? We'll show it to you.
[29:35] SPEAKER_02: So it is harder for Canadian startups. And I had been told this kind of again and again, but it's harder for Canadian startups to find US, VC investors that will a kind of, you know, value you or want to invest in you.
[29:54] SPEAKER_02: And there's some, but it's harder. So we wind up exploring that route quite a bit and even with our results, we kind of wind up angel rounds. I think we've done six rounds.
[30:06] SPEAKER_02: So through kind of the network. And then we landed with, you know, really focusing on the institutional investors in Canada, really are the ones that wind up on our short list. And we mutually kind of, you know, we're in the same space.
[30:22] SPEAKER_02: So it's not easy. And you have to have velocities. You have to show that you're selling and you repeat selling. And the bar is pretty high.
[30:35] SPEAKER_02: You know, when you had the checklist with our lean incubator, one of the presentations was the checklist, right? The peas and the VCs would come in and say, these are kind of the 10 things we look for.
[30:47] SPEAKER_02: So you'll quickly figure that out, you know, the CEO, the management team, the brand proposition, the price value, the gross margin, that I, that I, you go through the list. But most importantly is, how are you selling where you are on the shelf or you call them, you know, if you're an econ business.
[31:05] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that because I think it's, we hear so much about how US companies get VCs as an example and skip over the actual practicalities and canvas different.
[31:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess just let me goodness like the same idea in the US boom, I would have got two million right up front. Right.
[31:21] SPEAKER_02: We got, you know, under 400,000, 10,000 on a shot and the same idea. And I was just like, man, what the heck this brand, this brand, this brand, two million, two million, two not million, two million.
[31:31] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh goodness. So it's tough, you know, but thank you. There's a few more kind of, you know, institutional and startup funds and support that are helping.
[31:44] SPEAKER_02: But if you don't, you have to put in your money, you know, you kind of have to, and then you have to get angels.
[31:53] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's that having that little bit of skin in the game upfront, it does make a difference for the, for how it looks to people for the optics.
[32:01] SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah. That makes a ton of sense.
[32:05] SPEAKER_01: Before we wrap up, I want to ask, is there anything that, you know, we have a listener community of entrepreneurs, if you were community of entrepreneurs, is there anything that you want to leave them where there any advice that you would give anyone sort of starting out or
[32:20] SPEAKER_01: who feels stuck in this journey, maybe?
[32:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would think the biggest gift is the networking. And it's again, something I undervalued. And now I'm, you know, that I've been exposed to so many other CEOs and so many startups again and again, I'm getting, you know, we have a group of
[32:34] SPEAKER_02: female founders and we're all on email and we were connecting, you know, on, with dinners and, and get, and zoom and get together.
[32:43] SPEAKER_02: But I would really prioritize kind of leaning on, on, on others also to kind of build your network because what, what happens in your journey is you're going to need this and you're going to need that and you're going to need this and you're going to need that.
[32:58] SPEAKER_02: So when you may not think right today, you need a COO or you need kind of referral for a digital company like today, like, oh, no, no, I don't need that right now because today I'm focused on whatever these things are today that I'm solving.
[33:11] SPEAKER_02: But you're going to need the, the, the, the village, the community and try to make sure you spend, you know, an hour a day was with the old days, you know, when, when you were kind of trying to prioritize stuff like an hour a day on that community.
[33:26] SPEAKER_02: Because you don't know what you don't know, but you know that you're going to need support.
[33:31] SPEAKER_02: So make sure you, you know, join Mars and join all of the, whatever the startups are, I think they change a bit and, and, and, and look at that and spend time on that and then network and try to kind of say, okay, like, I want to, I want to kind of build real authentic connections, even though right now there's not an immediate need, but I'm in this entrepreneur community.
[33:52] SPEAKER_02: And the other reason I think that's really important is I felt kind of misunderstood earlier on like you're like a fish out of water, right? Like I'm, I'm networking with 200 blue suits, highly career successful, uber accomplished executives that were like, you know, three layers levels higher than I ever was.
[34:14] SPEAKER_02: And then it's me who's an entrepreneur and you suddenly have, you know, an hour conversation with Arlene who's like a, you know, a DNA entrepreneur and you're like, right, right, right, right, right, like you feel understood in a world of entrepreneur because it is a different world.
[34:32] SPEAKER_02: And I think you have to, so by focusing on the networking and on other kind of CEOs and founders and startups, you're going to get resources that you are going to need and you're going to get a better sense of being understood and relating to the unique challenges of being a CEO of a startup.
[34:52] SPEAKER_01: I think it's, I think it's a really, I think for any entrepreneurs, whether you are a startup, whether you are a service based business, whatever, you know, whatever sort of world you're in as an entrepreneur, I think that is incredibly valuable advice and I appreciate you bringing up again because we don't.
[35:08] SPEAKER_01: I think we look so often to shortcut the networking or don't know where to start with it, or whatever the things maybe just start right.
[35:17] SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah, I love that.
[35:20] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today, Susie.
[35:24] SPEAKER_01: You can find Susie online her company is www.lovegoodfatz.ca and there'll be links to that under this and, you know, I'm not part of the company but I highly recommend you do try the Mars because they are delicious.
[35:40] SPEAKER_02: And we launch shakes too and it's we're just launched new three new two in Eddie so there's lots of 12 different bars and two shakes and lots of options amazing everyone should definitely check them out. Thanks Susie.
[35:53] SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Celine.
[35:55] SPEAKER_03: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada. eBay Canada is here to help they've been supporting Canadian small business retailers for 25 years and their up and running program is getting Canadian businesses online today.
[36:09] SPEAKER_03: eBay.ca forward slash up and running stay local and sell global with eBay.